New Session: Struttin' With Some Barbeque
by scottishvalkyrie
Summary: Ed is hungry, and so Faye and Spike go in search of a bounty, discovering way more than they wanted.


Spike rose from the lumpy couch and immediately lit the smoke he kept between his lips as he slept – or at least, he attempted to. He quickly realized that he nearly set fire to his chin because his head was skewed wrong on his neck. He adjusted his hand with the fire and lit the smoke. He then took a deep drag and stretched mightily with his arms over his head, sending cracks along his entire spine until it got up to his neck, which did nothing more than make a creaking noise and send sharp arrows of pain to every extremity. Spike immediately gave a small yelp and hunkered down in agony. His cigarette fell from his mouth to the metal floor, extinguishing itself.

Still not quite awake, Spike attempted to assess his current situation: smokeless, hungry, in pain, and currently winning a Quasimodo look-alike contest. He wondered briefly what could possibly make this moment any worse when he heard a familiar squeal and then, without any warning, something landed on his back with great force.

"Horsey-ride! Horsey-ride! Giddy-yup! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"Ow! Christ, Ed!"

"Spi-person is a horse of a different color, a horse, of course!"

"ED!"

"Oh, sorry, Spi-person! I should horse-whisper!" And then Ed whispered loudly into Spike's ear, "Whisper Whisper, Shh, Shh, Shh!"

Spike grimaced and tried to shake the little parasite off his back. "Thanks, Ed, now I have an earful of your spit. Will you get off my back, you freakish little monkey?"

"Spi-person has a monkey on his back? Spi-person is not a heroin addict! Methadone, methadone, olly olly oxen free!"

Spike began to reach over his shoulder in an attempt to rip Ed from his back when she squealed again, and Spike felt her weight being removed. He turned around to see Jet holding out the girl at arms' length as she protested and squirmed. "Thanks, Jet, drop her on her head for me, wouldja?"

Jet raised an eyebrow at Spike. "Do you honestly think that's going to help?" He then put Ed down and snapped "Scat!" at her, taking a swat at her behind as she scampered off. Jet returned his attention to Spike. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"Got into a compromising position in a closet with three stewardesses."

"Did they speak only Esperanto?" asked Jet. Spike grinned and tried to turn his head on his neck again, and only got a click and another shot of pain for his trouble. Jet snorted. "Minnie the Moocher hasn't gotten up yet. I say you should grab a hot shower while you can."

"I say you should have this piece-of-shit sofa cleaned and burned."

"I say you should sleep in your own damn room."

"Whatever happened to _mi casa, su casa_?"

"I don't speak Esperanto, you reprobate. Get moving. I might actually have a job for you."

The hot shower helped Spike's neck some, but it still felt like it was full of barbed wire and broken glass, and now the neck had an extra bonus – the pain was spreading into his temples. He felt that if he could just get his neck to actually turn, it might loosen everything up, but he couldn't turn it himself with enough force to do anything. Then he heard a feminine shriek from the shower room. _Faye_. Spike had a mildly evil thought, and then decided to put his plan into motion.

He sauntered down to the door of the bathroom and called through it, "Something wrong, Romani?"

Faye yelled back, hard enough to vibrate the door, "You used all the hot water, you lunkhead!"

"Oh. I thought you had fallen in." He then swung the door open and got only a glimpse of her bare behind before she shrieked again and covered herself with a towel. Faye glared at him, red-faced. Spike took a look at her, up and down, and then clicked his tongue at her. "What are you doing, Faye? Storing fat in your thighs for the winter?"

Faye hit Spike's face with such force that his head whipped around with a reverberating _crack_ in his neck. Spike saw nothing but stars and pretty colors for a few moments, and then his vision cleared. He rotated his head around on his neck and moved around his jaw, and then drawled at Faye with a smile, "Thanks, Romani."

Faye was still red-faced, but now she looked completely confused. "You're . . . welcome?" Spike turned and left, closing the door behind him. Faye leapt forward and locked it immediately. She stood for a few moments, her palms against her cheeks, feeling just how hot her face was. Then she jumped into the cold shower.

Jet slammed a bowl on the table in front of Ed. At least she never complained about his cooking. She slurped the noodles up in seconds, and held her bowl up to Jet. "More-more, please-please!"

"That's all there is, Ed." Ed replied by opening her eyes as wide as a doe in the headlights and putting little tears in the corners. Jet sighed. He hated it when she did that. "There isn't any more food, Ed, unless Faye and Spike actually do some work around here. Perhaps you should take it up with them." Ed bounded out of the room immediately, and Jet breathed a sigh of relief. If she'd kept up the wide-eyed thing he might have broken down and let her know where the double-secret stash was. _Damn that girl._

Spike was moseying down the corridor towards the faint smell of food when Ed once again glomped onto his back. Spike yelped and tried to reach for the leech-like creature, turning in circles as whatever-it-was kept moving. Faye left her room and caught sight of Spike spinning like a washing-machine agitator. "Problems, Gorgio?"

"I . . . Ed . . . jeez . . . Will you get this girl off me?"

Faye chuckled. "Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd hear from you," she said as she tried to peel Ed off Spike. Ed gave a roar and jumped on Faye, making her squeal. Ed climbed onto Faye's back and beat Faye on the head with her hands, all the while chanting, "Go make Money! Go get Food! Go make Money!" Ein got in on the action, too, jumping around Spike's feet and barking. Spike tried to control Ed's flying hands as he yelled down to the kitchen, "Damn it, Jet, are you hoarding food again?"

Jet called back from the kitchen, "I can't hear you; I'm washing dishes, la la la dee dah la dee dah . . ."

Spike groaned, and then managed to take hold of Ed's flying fists of death. He put his nose against hers and said, "_ED_! Stop! Fine! We'll go after a bounty and fill your ungrateful stomach!" Ed responded by leaping off Faye's shoulders, nearly knocking her down in the process, and wrapping her long limbs around Spike. She began chanting about rice and bean curd and dumplings and fried chicken and ice cream and Porterhouse steak, and then Ed pulled on Spike's hair sharply. Spike yelped, and Ed got right into his face and growled, "_Got it_?"

Spike, head hurting from the hair pulling, could only nod. Ed then let go of Spike, scooped up Ein, and bounded off for the recesses of the ship.

Faye muttered, "I guess we better get moving."

After a short while, both Spike and Faye were walking down a boulevard in an old part of town. Faye lit a cigarette, fluffed her hair, and said, "What the name of this guy we're after?"

"London Arbuckle."

Faye wrinkled her nose. "That can't be a real name. It's about as ridiculous as . . . oh, I don't know. _Napoleon Dynamite_, maybe."

"Why does that name sound familiar? Was he President of the United States a long time ago?"

"I don't think so. A guy named George Bush was, though."

Spike lit a cigarette of his own. "Now you just made that up."

The information that they'd gotten on this Arbuckle character was that he used to have a perfectly respectable meat business, but that he was taking money under the table for more exotic animal flesh; in particular, endangered and nearly extinct species. Several conservation groups had actually consolidated in order to put this guy under a bounty, but the problem was that no proof of that kind of extra-curricular activities could be found. Faye had wondered if Arbuckle might have a side line in exotic furs as well, which Spike actually thought was a good idea, but unfortunately, nothing could found on that front, either.

_I wonder why activists are against wearing fur_, thought Spike. _It's warm. And for all we know, the animals might have a death wish and a desire to walk around on a bimbo's back, who knows?_ Then he looked over at Faye and asked, "Ever wish for a fur coat, Faye?"

"Who wouldn't?"

Spike chuckled at this thought.

They were now well within range of Arbuckle's main processing plant, and the stench of the slaughterhouse was nearly enough to choke them both. Faye wrinkled her nose and said, "How are we going to do this again? There's no proof that this guy is actually breaking any laws."

"Not our problem."

The air was suddenly filled with terrible screams. Faye jumped, startled, and grabbed Spike's arm. "Oh god, what was that?"

"They're . . . processing cows."

"Cows scream like that? It sounded like . . ." Faye continued to clutch at Spike's arm as they moved closer to the plant.

"Almost makes you want to go vegan, doesn't it? C'mon." Faye finally realized that she had been holding Spike tightly, and then she let him go quickly. Spike made no mention of it, but kept moving closer to a loading dock of the plant. Faye followed. They moved quickly through an open loading door, and stuck close to the wall. They were in what appeared to be a staging and shipping area. All the boxes were packed neatly and printed "meat" on them. Spike wondered momentarily why the boxes weren't labeled with the _kind _of meat when he noticed Faye beckoning to him.

She was near a staircase that looked like it led to an office. Spike drew his gun and began to sidle up the stairs, with Faye close behind. There was a window at the top, and Spike peeked in and noticed that the room was empty, except for a computer. Spike and Faye went into the room, but could find nothing out of the ordinary. Spike put in his ear bud for the comm. and called back to the ship, putting Ed on the trail of hacking the system they had just found. Spike had promise her an extra-special souvenir before she would comply, however.

Spike snorted at Faye. "What have you been teaching that girl?"

Faye replied, "Oh, don't look at me. That Ed's got you wrapped around her finger." Faye then took a peek through the crack in the door. "Someone's coming." Spike pressed himself into a corner, and Faye stayed near the door, stashing her Glock in her waistband. The door opened to a bilious man with bad skin, who only looked mildly surprised to find a woman in an abbreviated outfit standing in his office. Faye did her best to smile through her distaste and asked coyly, "Are you the guy I talk to about a meat delivery?"

The guy leered at her and grumbled, "I got your meat delivery right here, lady," and he moved closer to Faye. Spike, heretofore unseen, leapt out of his corner and collared the guy, but not before the stench of the man rolled into Spike's sinuses, making his eyes water. Spike muttered, "Where's Arbuckle?" However, he must have squeezed a little too hard, because the guy slid down to the floor with a thud. Spike backed up, now aware that the guy's stench was now all over him, and the only reason Spike wasn't vomiting at the moment was that he hadn't eaten yet today.

The ear bud chirped at him. "Ed-Ed has building schematics! Go back down the stairs; take the third door on the right, and straight on til morning!"

Spike gagged for a moment, and then said, "Let's get out of here."

They went back down the stairs and found the third door on the right, which opened into a long dark room. Spike muttered to Faye to hang on to him, and she took a hold of his shoulder as they made their way through the pitch-black room. Faye's heel got caught on some sort of grate on the floor, and she pitched sideways, and into something that seemed to be hanging from the ceiling, something cold, wet, and not very pleasant. She gave a little shriek, and then all the lights went on.

They were in a room with thousands of carcasses hanging on hooks. Faye had stumbled into a split and skinned pig. She extricated herself from it and it swung in Spike's direction. He sidestepped the pig but then backed into a row of sides of beef, sending them swinging. Then there was a gunshot in their direction. Faye and Spike jumped between two rows of hanging meat into a shallow water trough, running towards the far end of the room. They flattened themselves against the wall, and then Faye made the mistake of looking down at her feet. She began to gag, and Spike looked down as well, and found they hadn't been running through water after all, but a mixture of blood and offal, and they were drenched up to the knees. He whispered, "C'mon, Faye!" And took off towards the direction of the gunshots. Faye bit her lip and followed.

Spike and Faye burst through a door and found themselves in another dark room that was filled with the sound of rushing water and machinery. Spike fumbled along a wall and found a light switch, and then immediately after flipping it, wished he hadn't. If the previous room hadn't been bad enough, this was definitely worse: this was a rendering room for great vats of offal, presumably to be used for feed or fertilizer. It wasn't until that Spike's eyes stopped watering that he noticed that the machinery was actually for canning, and the cans were being loaded into boxes labeled simply _meat_.

Spike made his way down the narrow catwalk, with Faye close behind. About fifty feet in front of them, a figure stepped into view. He wasn't especially tall, and he had a nervous air about him, and he clutched a double-barreled shotgun, leveled in their direction.

"Arbuckle?" called Spike.

The man didn't answer, but kept the gun fairly level. However, he kept nervously glancing to his side, back behind a large piece of machinery that looked like a huge boiler. Spike kept moving forward, and the closer he got, the more it looked like the shotgun Arbuckle held was an antique replica. Arbuckle was now backing up from the two high-powered handguns pointed at him, all the while glancing off to the side. Now that Spike had cleared the boiler, he could see what Arbuckle kept glancing at. And Spike did a double-take, and then a triple-take.

Off to the side was a bin filled with human limbs.

"It's not what you think!" shrieked Arbuckle. Faye must have seen the bin by now as well, because she made an awful gurgling noise, turned, and vomited over the railing. "It was all just supposed to go to make fertilizer! It was a favor! But . . . some got mixed in . . . and the sale of my potted meat skyrocketed . . . what's a business man to do? I ask you! Government contracts! The military and their MREs! The general public . . ."

Spike had had enough. "If I shot you, would you _shut up_?" Arbuckle took this opportunity to cock the replica shotgun in Spike's direction. Spike sighed, stepped forward, and grabbed the barrel of the gun, pointing it upwards. The old gun suddenly fired, burning Spike's hand and scaring all three of them. The shot hit a light fixture and broken glass showered down on them. Arbuckle turned and ran down the catwalk, with Spike in close pursuit. Faye had managed to stop vomiting and began to run wobbily after them.

Arbuckle reached a T in the catwalk, and slowed briefly to make a turn, but Spike was too fast for him. Spike leapt forward in a tackle, and suddenly, Spike realized that his tackle was far more powerful than it needed to be, particularly since it pitched them both over the railing. Spike reached up with one hand to grab at the railing but it slipped through his fingers as both he and Arbuckle fell downwards. _With any luck, I'll just break my legs,_ thought Spike, and then his eyes grew wide as he noticed exactly what he was going to land in.

The cops came quickly after Faye called them. Arbuckle was cuffed and taken away, and Faye collected the bounty, because Spike's electronic money transfer card was currently ruined, along with his suit, his shoes, and perhaps his appetite for the next thirty years.

Faye felt particularly sorry for him, despite the fact that her stockings and shoes had been ruined as well, but the damage that she had to undergo was nothing, _nothing_ in comparison to what Spike currently had to endure. She grimaced in Spike's direction and asked, "Is there anything I can get you?"

Spike stood, shivering, soaking wet, covered with a combination of substances he didn't even want to think about. He shuddered, and said, "A hose?"

Jet had gotten the call from Faye that they had been successful, and she immediately transferred a cut into Jet's account. Jet and Ed went grocery shopping and laid in enough food to last for some time, in particular canned goods that could be easily stored. But for tonight, Jet splurged on a treat, Bebop-style.

Faye and Spike finally dragged themselves back to the ship. Spike was soaking wet, Faye was stocking-less and shoeless, and they both smelled like a camel with dysentery. Neither one wanted to elaborate on the bounty details. In fact, they were both quiet and cordial to each other, which Jet thought was a welcome change. Both Faye and Spike showered in relays, not complaining about the lack of hot water, borrowing each other's shampoo, and Faye gave several bottles of her expensive body washes to Spike. She also quietly collected Spike's clothes that he had been wearing, and ran them through the clothes washer over half-a-dozen times.

A couple of hours later, both Faye and Spike sat down to dinner, both scrubbed pink and shiny and smelling of fruits and flowers and soap and shampoo, and very very quiet. Jet put their plates in front of them, expecting a cry of thanks for the huge slabs of sirloin steak, grilled to perfection, sizzling.

Faye and Spike took a glance at each other, and pushed their plates away, muttering, "Not hungry." They both got up and Faye made her way towards the door. Spike went to the cabinet and found a bottle of scotch, waved it in Faye's direction. She nodded. Then Spike noticed in the cabinets several tins of potted meat. _London's Potted Meat_. Spike grabbed them and went with Faye out to the deck, where they threw them as far away from the ship as possible, and then sat on the deck to smoke and drink.

Jet was flummoxed. "Sheesh. They beg for meat and then they throw it away first chance they get it. Ingrates. Oh well. More for you Ed?"

"Aye-aye, Papa-Jet! More Please! And some for Ein, too!"

"Ein? You want some steak, boy?"

"Arf!"

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_All Bebop characters are property of Sunrise, Inc._

_**Struttin' With Some Barbeque** performed by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five._


End file.
